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Smash Bros. Dojo Updates

by Mike Gamin - June 22, 2007, 10:12 am EDT
Total comments: 13 Source: SmashBros.com

Here's a summary of everything that was announced this week at the official Smash Bros. blog.

There were several new announcements made over at the official Smash Bros. DOJO!! blog this week. Sadly, none of them were especially earth rattling, but for those of us who are salivating for the release of Brawl, there are a few tidbits to drool over.

Link's final smash was officially revealed, but it had already been shown in the trailer that came out last year. It's called Triforce Slash. One interesting additional piece of info is that the glowing Triforce that appears around Link's opponent actually originates from the back of Link's hand.

Pikachu's final smash was also revealed. It is named after the very rare and very powerful electric attack from the Pokemon universe called Volt Tackle. During this attack, Pikachu can still be controlled, but like the Power Hammer, it is dangerous to move around too much, as made evident in this quote: “It's quite speedy while airborne. This...can be dangerous."

Wario was officially announced as a new character, even though he was also unveiled in the original trailer that came out a year ago. He will be using bodily functions like farting as his primary means of attacking, as this quote suggests: “It's rumored that this unpredictable character will give birth to a form of martial arts that other characters cannot even see."

Two of Fox's special moves were also unveiled, and they seem to be identical to moves that were in Melee. His down special move is the reflector shield that bounces projectile attacks aback at his opponent. His standard special move is a rapid fire blaster that does damage to opponents, but does not cause them to flinch.

Lastly, a new stage was revealed. It's based in the Star Fox universe and is called Lylat Cruise. It appears to be similar to the Venom level from Melee. Combatants battle on the multi-level rear end of a space ship. The ship travels to different environments like asteroid fields and cloudy atmospheres. Players will have to dodge laser fire from incoming Arwings as they battle it out.

That's it for this week's updates. If you want to see them as they go up, make sure you visit SmashBros.com every day. Also, check back here next Friday for another summary of the week's announcements. If any big news comes during the week (like a release date or brand new character) we'll post it as it happens.

Talkback

NinGurl69 *hugglesJune 22, 2007

Nintendo needs to learn it's not 1993 anymore and people don't run their desktops at 640x480.

USE REAL SCREENS

pSYCO-gAMER321June 22, 2007

I been obsessively looking over the site over and over and watching the trailers and it has SERIOUS clues to what they posted on the site. Now the site has clues as well. Oh man, I cannot wait!

@Pro666: Yeah, agree!

UERDJune 22, 2007

The spaceship stage and its execution is super cool (super space battle FTW), but the model of the stage itself is rather bland (even more so than the SSBM Great Fox). Also, besides being a spaceship, what does it have to do with Starfox exactly?

NinGurl69 *hugglesJune 22, 2007

Nothing. It's actually from CONTRA.

TJ SpykeJune 22, 2007

It seems like all the stages have the same basic boring design (Battlefield from SSBM). I like the unique stages like Icicle Mountain, the Temple, Big Blue, and Mute City. That's why I wasn't happy to hear that Sakurai was making more stages like the Battlefield and Final Destination and less crazy stages.

DasmosJune 24, 2007

Icicle mountain was the worst stage of all time.

Shift KeyJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: Dasmos
Icicle mountain was the worst stage of all time.


Second'd. If this makes it in then I will die a little more on the inside.

TheBlackCatJune 24, 2007

From the video and the shape of the picture of the ship on the website it looks like the Lylat Cruise level will rotate horizontally, so that sometimes you play looking at the ship from the back and other times you play looking at the ship from the side. This will cause considerable changes to the level layout over the course of the battle. It seems sort of like switching back and forth between the Corneria and Venom levels from SSBM throughout the course of the battle. From the screenshot shown above it looks like players will have to play through such changes. Other orientations that have not bee seen are also possible, including from the front. The ship doesn't seem particularly suited for barrel rolls, though, since there are no vertical platforms and a fairly featureless bottom. I also doubt that the asteroids and airwings are just for show.

I also wouldn't be too upset about the levels. We have only seen four so far, including Delfino Island which seems pretty crazy and Lylat Cruise which also seems pretty interesting. I suspect that they are holding back the big surprises until later. For instance we still don't know how the seasonal changes will affect things in Yoshi's Island. They call it "the big highlight" but don't say why.

The big breakthrough in Brawl levels seems to be that they are fully 3D. You can still only interact with the level in a 2D manner, but the levels themselves have depth. By looking at the 3D level from different angles the 2D battlefield can change. This wasn't possible in SSBM and opens up a whole range of possibilities for level design. I suppose in effect these are fully 3D levels but your controls only let you move in 2 dimensions (except in limited cases like Snake stepping into the background).

And it shouldn't be a surprise that fox's special moves are the same, the website announced a long time ago that he would be mostly getting cosmetic changes and that his moves and capabilities would be mostly unchanged.

I am a bit suprised, although probably shouldn't be, about the variety of Final Smash moves. I figured they would mostly be generic "blow away the entire screen" moves, like Mario's is, but from the looks of things they will be considerably different in pretty much every way (besides being extremely powerful). Practically speaking they seem more like player-specific pokemon. They are functionally similar to the "summon boss" item I wanted that would summon a boss creature from the character's series.

ArbokJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: Shift Key
Quote

Originally posted by: Dasmos
Icicle mountain was the worst stage of all time.


Second'd. If this makes it in then I will die a little more on the inside.


I'll third this. Made me shy away from the Random stage feature in most cases.

So far, I have no complaints with the levels shown, although I will be sad if there isn't a stage like the Great Fox from the previous two SSB games... as it was my favorite.

TJ SpykeJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: Shift Key
Quote

Originally posted by: Dasmos
Icicle mountain was the worst stage of all time.


Second'd. If this makes it in then I will die a little more on the inside.


I just meant in terms of being unique.

TheBlackCatJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: Arbok

So far, I have no complaints with the levels shown, although I will be sad if there isn't a stage like the Great Fox from the previous two SSB games... as it was my favorite.


What exactly are you looking for in a Great Fox level? If it does rotate it would seem the side-view of the Lylat Cruise level will have many of the properties of the Great Fox level.

I should also correct myself, it looks like we have seen at least 10 levels and perhaps a couple more than that.

ArbokJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: TheBlackCat
I also wouldn't be too upset about the levels. We have only seen four so far, including Delfino Island which seems pretty crazy and Lylat Cruise which also seems pretty interesting.


Well four on the site (Battlefield, Lylat Cruise, Yoshi's Island, Delfino Island), but we have seen 10 in total, with the others being:

Pokémon Stadium
Mario Circuit (Mario Kart)
Halberd (Kirby)
Angel Land (Kid Icarus)
"Castle" (Fire Emblem? Seems most likely, although people have been going crazy trying to track the flag design to a game)
Shadow Moses (Metal Gear Solid)

Quote

Originally posted by: TheBlackCat
I am a bit suprised, although probably shouldn't be, about the variety of Final Smash moves. I figured they would mostly be generic "blow away the entire screen" moves, like Mario's is, but from the looks of things they will be considerably different in pretty much every way (besides being extremely powerful). Practically speaking they seem more like player-specific pokemon.


Yep, I'm digging that. Still hoping Ganondorf is back, and his Final Smash is to "Hulk-out" into his Ganon form.

ArbokJune 24, 2007

Quote

Originally posted by: TheBlackCat
What exactly are you looking for in a Great Fox level? I think the side-view of the Lylat Cruise will have many of the properties of the Great Fox level.


For me, the Great Fox stage was perfect. Just the right size, not too big at times like Zelda's, with a mostly flat terrian with that little "nook" on the right being perfect for fleeing. I also liked that it didn't change much, besides the Arwings flying in. The Lylat Cruise looks nice... but if it's changing so much in terms of function during battle then it will hardly fill in the same niche for me that the Great Fox did in both previous games.

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